


A Different Shade of Green

by KiSierra



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, Teen Wolf (TV), The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Amnesia, Banshee Powers, Building trust, Canon Compliant, Confusion, Crossover, F/M, Fighting, Gen, Heartache, Impulses, Memory Loss, Post Season 5, Post The Lost Hero, Supernatural - Freeform, Visions, instincts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-04-30 20:02:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14504448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiSierra/pseuds/KiSierra
Summary: Lydia's cousin never calls. The two redheads were never close. It's more than strange when she suddenly does call, asking about some missing friend of hers. And it's even stranger when Lydia wakes up, a few weeks later, screaming his name.She knows this Percy Jackson is about to burst into their lives, and she knows he'll bring trouble with him. A lot of it.





	1. Chapter 1

Stiles answers on the first ring.

"Finally!" he exclaims from the other side. "Tell me this is about what's been nagging you all day and you wouldn't tell me about."

Lydia can't help but smile weakly at his exasperated tone, even though the tight feeling in her stomach and throat.

"Yes," she answers, trying to hide the light amusement in her voice, and the tiredness. It's close to eleven p.m., and she's been awake since dawn. It's been a tiring day. "Can we meet? I think it's too important to be over the phone."

"Of course," he answers, and she feels warm inside at the immediate answer. Not warm enough to turn off the heat in her car, though, and she fiddles with the regulator to make it even hotter. "Where do you wanna go to? I'm on my way to my jeep," Stiles says.

She looks out of the window, to the dark house she was watching from her car for the last thirty minutes. The water from the lake near it shine under the weak light of the moon. The cold feeling from earlier makes her shudder again, and she clutches the phone, missing that warm feeling the awkward boy from the other side always manages to make her feel.

"Wait," she says softly. "Is it okay that I'll come to your house?"

"Uh, yeah," he says, sounding surprised. "Dad's at the station, so we'll have the house to ourselves."

"Great," she smiles again, and it's a full smile this time. "I'll be there in a minute."

Stiles is standing at the front door, a strange look on his face as he watches her park her blue car in front of his house. His hands are tapping anxiously on his jeans-clad thighs, eyes running over her like he's trying to reassure himself.

"Where have you been?" he asks as she gets out of her car, eyes squinting fastly at her. There's something raw in his voice.

"In my car," she says, brow creasing. "Driving here. Is everything okay?"

"No, everything's not okay," he snaps, then sighs and closes his eyes. "Sorry, I just… You were supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago. I was worried. I thought you were at your house when you called."

"Oh," she says, that warm feeling she craves coming crashing, along with a tad of embarrassment. She feels stupid, as if she let him down somehow. She doesn't let it show though.

"Sorry," she says quietly, her hands tingling as she closes the car door behind her. "I was at the lake house. Actually, not at it, I didn't go inside." She shuts her mouth in determination and focuses on making her way to him, a bag in her hand, before she would embarrass herself any farther.

"The lake house? Your grandmother's lake house?" he asks and goes on before she can respond, opening the door for them. "What were you doing there alone? You  _ were _ alone, right?"

"Yes," she answers, following him upstairs. "I was in my car, watching it. Can I, uh," she stops, realizing she didn't even ask him yet. He looks at her as they reach his room, and she raises her eyes to his, suddenly feeling something that feels suspiciously-close to shy.

"Is it okay that I'll stay over here for the night?" she asks. He blinks. "I already have here everything I need, so…" she nudges her bag.

It's not entirely out of order, her staying at the guest room in his house for the night. Even the sheriff and her mom are aware and okay with it. It started right after the Nogitsune, when everything was raw and fragile and everyone in the pack felt the need to stay close all the time, especially her and Stiles and Scott. But life goes on, even when one of your friends dies and another becomes emotionally unstable after being possessed by an ancient demon. Everyone got slowly better, until Scott didn't text her every few hours to make sure she's okay, and Stiles didn't call her every few nights because he couldn't breathe, and she stopped feeling like there's a hole in her chest she isn't able to fill, nothing's able. They settled back into life, not entirely different from how it used to be but definitely not the same, never the same.

But she still came, sometimes after one of them had a worse-than-usual nightmare, or with no reason at all. It felt natural and safe, and she knew Stiles didn't mind. In fact, she thinks he liked it, though if he did he didn't let it show. Just like she didn't.

But it's not that natural now. They haven't done that in a while, not since he started dating Malia. The two aren't together for some time now, but every time she felt the need to come over she started pondering it over and over, too hesitant to really ask, and Stiles never said anything.

He stares at her now, looking adorably bewildered. His eyes squint at her, lightning-fast. "Um, yeah," he answers. "I mean, the guest room needs a few hours of some intense cleaning, that I was planning to do since the last time you've been here, which was, like, years ago, but if you're okay with that -"

"I am," she smiles at him, satisfied and filled with that warmness, and he blinks again.

"Lydia," he says, and it's slow and calculated enough to make her wipe off the smile and prepare herself for a long talk. "Can you please tell me what's going on?"

She sighs and plops herself down on his bed. He sits in his chair across from her.

"It started a few weeks ago," she starts, the warm feeling slowly draining out as she focuses on the problem at hand. The tiredness and the stress Stiles had unintentionally managed to make her forget are coming back in a rash, as if they were just waiting for a chance to consume her again.

"Do you need me to bring in the board?" Stiles interrupts, looking tense as he gazes at her intently.

"No," she shakes her head, too tired to be mad at the fast disruption. "I don't think there's really enough information for that… but you can, if you want."

He hesitates for a moment before getting up and pulling his board to the center of the room. "Okay, go on," he nods at her.

"So a few weeks ago," she says again, "I got this call from my cousin. Did I ever tell you about her?"

He shakes his head. "I didn't even know you have any cousins."

"Just her," Lydia says, as if to reassure him, "and we're not very close. I saw her maybe twice in my life. My dad and her mom didn't grow up together and they don't go along very well, and setting up a meeting isn't a simple task - she lives in New York. But... it's not just that."

"What do you mean?" he asks, eyes trained on her intently.

"I mean it's not just the distance. We could've met up if we really wanted to. But I don't think we should. There's something weird about her."

"What kind of something?"

"Something like… a banshee-something? I don't really know how to call it. It's just there, and it feels like we're better stay away from each other. Far, far away," she clarifies.

"Sounds pretty intense," he says, brow furrowing. "Do you think she's like you? A banshee?"

Lydia shrugs. "She could be. She's my grandma's granddaughter too. But I don't think so. I didn't have any sort of weird feelings like these with Meredith. And Rachel, my cousin… she just feels different. Like something dangerous. Something forbidden. And I'm pretty sure she doesn't trust me either."

"What's her last name?" Stiles asks.

"Dare," Lydia answers, the name rolls off her tongue as if she's trying to taste it. "Rachel Elizabeth Dare."

He turns to the board and writes ' _ Rachel Dare _ ' in a messy handwriting. He looks back at her.

"You said she called you. What did she say?"

"She asked me something - if I have any idea where some guy named Percy Jackson might be."

Stiles raises his eyebrows. "That's weird."

"I know. She said he's been missing for a few months now. I told her I have no idea who he is, and she said it's okay and asked me to call her right away if I hear anything about him."

Lydia could still remember the barely contained disappointment in Rachel's voice as she answered Lydia's response with a quiet, " _ Oh… Well, it's okay, I just… I had that feeling, like… Sorry, never mind. I don't want to bother you. Just… call me if anything happens, alright? If you hear anything, even the smallest, about him, just let me know. _ "

"I forgot about it," Lydia says. "Pretty quickly, actually. It's… a bit strange, now that I think about it."

"What?"

"How I forgot it, just like that." Her brow furrows. She shakes her head a moment later. "Never mind. Anyway, I didn't think about it again, not even once. And then, today at four in the morning, I woke up in a scream. I have no idea what have I dreamt about, just that it was awful. And guess what name I was screaming?"

"That guy your cousin asked you about," Stiles catches on immediately.

She nods. "Exactly. Percy Jackson. And I still think about him. All the time. Every time I think about something else, it feels like I'm forgetting something."

Except when I speak with you, she thinks, but it fades quickly as Stiles turns back to the board with his wheels-turning-in-a-thousand-miles-a-minute face.

He writes ' _ what is she? _ ' in a small writing under Rachel's name, then adds an arrow to the right and writes a big ' _ Percy Jackson _ ', and a big question mark under it.

"Is that all?" he asks. "What were you doing at the lake house?"

"I had that feeling," she explains. "Ever since I woke up. I couldn't go back to sleep, and I couldn't concentrate, and it only got worse as the day went on, and I felt -" she swallows and stops herself. She doesn't need to say it, it wouldn't help their little investigation anyway. She's about to make herself go on when Stiles suddenly kneels in front of her.

"You felt what?" he asks, and her throat tightens, because he's so gentle, and she was fighting the urge to cry for a whole day now, and her throat was starting to throb again, and it's so much worse than it should be because she thought they  **finally** got to have some peace and quiet.

"I felt like something is about to go horribly wrong," she says, not louder than a whisper. "It was silent, Stiles. Not a whisper. Like it's too quiet, like the quiet before the storm."

He squeezes her hands and looks at her with those unreadable eyes of his, light brown and sweet like honey. "It's going to be okay, Lydia," he says quietly. "We'll figure it out. Like always."

But what if this time we don't? She wants to ask, but instead she exhales. She does so slowly, letting herself relax under his touch, letting herself calm down. The tightness in her throat lessened, and she puts on a determined face. Stiles half-smiles at her.

"Anyway," she goes back to business, and Stiles stands up again. "I felt really bad the whole day. By eight I couldn't take it anymore, I  **had** to go out,  **do** something." Before she left her house she took a bag with everything she'll need for the night, because she was starting to have this feeling like this is about to be a long one. Now that feeling was only getting stronger. "I drove around the town a few times, stopped where I felt worse than usual, walked around. At some point, I realized the feeling was getting stronger as I got closer to my grandma's lake house. I stopped outside and watched it for some time, and it was still too quiet. I couldn't stand it anymore, so I called you. That's it."

Stiles silently writes ' _ Lake House _ ' above Percy's name, then turns to her.

"I hope you know, Lydia - You know you can tell me anything, right? I mean, you didn't need to wait the whole day to tell me. I've been here since the morning."

His voice is quiet, quieter than quiet, and though he doesn't look away and he sounds more irritated than anything else, she knows that look in his eyes that means he is uncertain. Uncertain in a way that makes her want to embrace him. Of course she knows he's here. He's the only one that always been here, including when she didn't even knew or cared about him.

And she wants to be there for him too. That's exactly the reason she refused to say anything the whole day - because she cares. And she knows, maybe better than anyone (except Scott), that Stiles doesn't take things lightly. He takes them to his heart, and he loses sleep over them. Always been this way. Got worse after the Nogitsune. And even worse now, after what happened with Donovan. Stiles doesn't deal well with worry -who would have in his place? - and if it's possible, she would spare him any emotional stress she can. So for a whole day, she ignored him when he asked what's wrong, up until she couldn't take it anymore. She had never considered herself selfish, but maybe she is.

But she also knows that Stiles usually has a hard time with confronting a problem, especially emotional problem, especially if it's about him. So she plays along.

"Of course I know," she rolls her eyes. "You weren't very subtle about it."

"I was worried!" he protests with an annoyed voice, and he's okay now, she can see that. Both of them are, if you ignore her growing headache and that damn silence eating her from the inside.

"Let's focus, okay?" she asks seriously, and he goes somber. "What are we going to do?"

He sighs and examines the board again. "I don't think there's a lot we can do," he says. "You were right, there's not enough information at all. We could go and wait outside the lake house, just in case, but I don't know if anything will is actually going to happen."

She's standing before he's even finished. "Yes, that's a good idea. My headache gets worse when I'm close to that place. Let's go."

Lydia wakes up with a start.

Her heart is racing. She shots up and looks around, breath stuttering. Stiles is sound asleep next to her in the driver's seat, snoring lightly. Everything's quiet inside his jeep.

She gets up and exits the vehicle as quietly as she can, almost stumbling. She looks at the lake house in front of her, the crescent moon lighting it and the lake itself with a weak white light, and she feels dizzy. Her head is pounding hard, the hardest she ever felt before. She thinks it's about to explode.

The voices inside her head, that's what woke her up. They're back. Through the pain, she's able to feel some kind of relief about it, because with everything that happened she started to feel like they're part of her, and being without them was something akin to losing sight. Or maybe hearing.

The relief quickly fades though, leaving her cold and empty, and the voices are getting stronger, more demanding, and she covers her ears but it doesn't help - never does - because they're coming from the inside. She stumbles forward, walking blindly until she feels water covering her feet, and she tries to listen to the whispers, she tries to tell them to slow down, but they don't, they just go faster, and they scream inside her head but she doesn't understand, she **can't** understand, she wraps her hands around her head and crouch, and they are so loud - **too** **loud** -

"RUN!" someone yells, and she's just registering that it came from  **outside** her head when there's suddenly water all around her, pushing her back, and something is - hissing?

Her sight clears. She stands up. She's able to push the sounds to the back of her head again and focus, the feeling of being consumed disappearing.

There's a woman in front of her. Only it's not a woman. Not entirely. It's something… stranger.

Her hair waves around her, hissing, as if it's a living thing. Her eyes are glowing green, and her hair seems to be the same color, but it's hard to know in the lack of light. She's hissing too now, lips pulled back, as she looks at Lydia with hungry eyes.

There's more hissing from behind her. Lydia turns around to find herself face to face with another creature, similar to the first one but the eyes and hair, which are bright orange instead of the sicky green. This one is closer, and Lydia can see now that her hairs really aren't hairs, but snakes. They're all turned to hiss at her. The monster's eyes glisten as she scans Lydia from head to toe, tongue darting out as if she's trying to taste her. Lydia would be dinner before she'd make one step to get away.

Then there's a boy. At least, Lydia thinks it's a boy - it's too dark to see clearly, and the tall figure moves like a hurricane of movements. He has something in his hand, something long and sharp - it slashes the night's air mercilessly. The water whirls around them, the wind blowing all around, and she can't see anything but she can hear it all - the wind whipping at the lake's water, the hissing, the swirling of the water around them, the screeching sounds of something that cannot be human, the clashing of metal against metal, metal against flesh. She can hear the almost-silent steps of the boy in the water, the quietness of his movements and breaths. He moves so swiftly in the water, so soundlessly, she can't help but follow his silence in the confusion and chaos around her.

A moment later it's over. The boy - guy - is standing in front of her, covered by the night's darkness, only his rough outline visible to her. The female monsters are gone. She can see now how tall he is - probably more than six foot - and his lean and muscular shape. She can hear his heavy breathing, even heavier than hers.

"Where - where did they go?" she asks shakily.

He sighs, hands somewhat trembling as he raises them to wipe something off his face. "You saw all of this?" he asks instead of answering, voice unsteady. "You saw them - how they are?"

Her heart is still racing. "I saw the snakes if that's what you mean," she answers, cringing at her higher-than-usual-voice. He doesn't answer for a few quiet moments.

"Well?" she demands, the feeling of being trapped - though she is free to go and she knows it - getting stronger, making her antsy and - afraid. The voices are getting stronger again.

"They're gone," he says, vague enough to make her even more unsure.

"Lydia!"

She turns around. Stiles is running to them, looking disheveled and worried, flashlight in hand. He steps into the water without even noticing and stops next to her, eyes scanning her urgently.

"Are you okay? What's going on?" His eyes land on the guy in the shadows, who's starting to make his way to the other direction but doesn't go out of the water. "Who's that?"

The guy freezes. Stiles aims the flashlight at him, and in the strong light, she can see his torn clothes - shaggy sports shoes, a faded pair of jeans, an almost-completely ruined orange shirt - all dirty and looking like they're about to fall apart any minute. He has long, wild black hair that seems to be begging for a haircut. His skin is tanned deeply.

He is totally dry, even though he just fought wildly in the water. Not one drop.

The longer she looks at him, the stronger the voices are becoming, as unreadable as before. Her head and throat start to throb again.

"Wait," she yells. "What were they? Those female things?"

"What female things?" Stiles asks.

The guy turns to the side, looking hesitant. The voices whisper something urgently, not clear enough for her to understand. "They're called Gorgons."

"Thank you," she says, softer this time. "For saving me. Would you like to stay here for some time? We can help you."

"What are you doing?" Stiles whispers to her. She doesn't answer, she doesn't know what to say - she has no idea herself. It's instinctual, her words getting out before she even knows what she is about to say, but she doesn't do anything to stop them. Something is needed to be done, something Lydia can't do, but the banshee can.

It seems that the mysterious guy understands that too, because he doesn't say no immediately. He turns himself fully towards them.

Lydia looks into the greenest eyes she has ever seen.

"If it's not a problem..." he says hesitantly, eyes flicking between her and Stiles.

"No, don't worry about it," she says. "I'm Lydia Martin, this is Stiles." She looks at him intently, the whispers getting louder and louder, just about to break the surface. "Who are you?"

It doesn't really matter. She knows the answer anyway. And yet she listens closely to his response, trying to understand the true answer.

"I'm Percy Jackson," he says, and through the mayhem inside her head, one whisper makes itself audible. Lydia hears it clearly.

It says,  _ I don't know. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um, yeah. So this is the first chapter, hope you liked it. Posting isn't going to be fast or anything, particularly later on, so be patient :)  
> Also, English isn't my native language and I'll very appreciate constructive criticism.  
> See ya later!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit shorter. Hope you'll like it :)

Stiles gapes at Percy, and Lydia just  **knows** it won’t end well.

“You are the gu -?”

She “accidentally” splashes water with her foot in an attempt to stop him, desperately looking around for a distraction.

“Oh!” she says as her eyes land on something she’s surprised she didn’t notice until now. “You’re hurt!”

Percy’s right thigh is bleeding. Not he-is-about-to-die bleeding, but still seriously bleeding. He doesn’t even seem to notice until she points to his leg’s direction, but she is not about to let him just bleed in front of them as they chat. Especially if they chat about his identity.

No, they can’t talk about it with him. Not as long as the whispers coming from him scream at her like that, still blocked from her and just as unreadable as before.

If there’s something Lydia had learned from her experience with her banshee powers, it’s to trust her instincts. Doing-now, questions-later kind of trust. And right now her instincts are telling her to keep all the information she has about Percy Jackson from Percy Jackson, including her cousin, including everything. 

Her instincts are also telling her that he needs her help. And to keep a safe distance between them. Which is pretty much the opposite when she translates it into actions, but she knows how to walk on the edge without falling. She’d done this before, she can do it again.

“Come on, let’s take you inside. I’m sure there’s an aid kit somewhere in there.”

Percy looks very unsure. “Inside?” he asks, looking briefly at the dark house behind her.

She turns to look at it too. “This was my grandmother’s lake house. She is… not here anymore,” she says hurriedly, trying to cover her hesitation before he’ll notice. After all this time, especially since the Benefactor, it’s still a sore spot for her. She turns back to look at him.

“I have the keys. You can come inside with us and we’ll find you something to take care of your leg, maybe have something to eat... You can always leave,” she adds when she sees the way his foot taps in the water - impossibly silently, she notices - like he wants to run, and the uncertainty in his green-greenest eyes.

He inhales slowly, as if to prepare himself, then says, “thanks, that would be great.”

She smiles brightly at him. “Come, the entry is this way. I just need to take the keys from the jeep first.”

She doesn’t feel completely safe turning her back to him, but she does so anyway - it’s more important that he’ll trust her right now. She stays on high alert though.

Stiles stays close to her as they walk. She can feel him looking at her, but she doesn’t look back. “Lydia,” he says in a frantic whisper. 

And it's all he needs to say to make her understand that he got her message about not telling anything to Percy, and he wants an explanation. Because it stresses him when he deals with something he doesn’t know anything about, and it makes him sound like he is annoyed too, but she knows he isn’t really.

“Let’s talk inside, okay?” she asks softly, somewhat reprimanding but mostly just quiet. He sighs and looks away. It makes her feel uncomfortable, but she knows they can’t talk about so close to Percy. He’ll be able to hear, even when they whisper, she’s sure about it.

She takes the chance to concentrate on the whispers as they walk. Since that moment when Percy told them his name they had calmed down, letting her think straight again. But they’re still buzzing, just underneath the surface. She can feel it. So many words, so many stories wanting to be heard - none of them able to make themselves audible enough for that. As if he is… blocked, somehow.

Only one managed to escape.  _ I don’t know _ .

She knows it wasn’t a response to his name. It was a correction. She asked him who is he, and he said his name, but the true answer to that question was  _ I don’t know _ .

Why wouldn’t he know?

The whispers are still humming in the back of her head, still very much present. They sound desperate through that barrier that doesn’t let her hear, they sound like they suffer. Like they  **need** to be heard, needed that for a long time now. She sighs as her their ache swamps her. 

She sneaks a glance at the mysterious guy behind her. He is staring at her intently. Their eyes meet, and she wants to back away, but it’s too late now. He looks at yer with stormy-green eyes, unreadable, and she feels the whispers getting stronger, begging to be released. He tilts his head. She wonders if the whispers are blocked from him too. 

Maybe that’s why he  _ doesn’t know _ . Maybe he can’t remember who he is, just like she can't hear his whispers. Maybe it’s the same thing.

She averts her eyes from him, looking back to the front instead. They are just reaching the jeep. Percy stays back as Stiles opens the passenger door and she creeps in, coming out with her bag in her hand. 

They walk to the house’s front door. Percy keeps a large distance between himself and them all the time, and it bothers her more than turning her back on him. Maybe the true danger isn’t not being ready for an attack from him, but the simple possibility that there will be an attack. Maybe, if he trusted her, she would feel much better about everything.

They reach the front door. Her urgent need for him to come into the house clears when she sees the almost invisible line of mountain ash on the floor. The banshee in her wants to see if he is able to pass, if he is human, or something else.

But he doesn’t come. He stays away, almost ten feet away, his face closed and eyes running around like a trapped animal. She opens the door widely to show him there’s nothing dangerous waiting for him inside, even goes inside with Stiles and turns on the lights to show him the regular living room - but he doesn’t move. 

The whispers inside her head become louder in her ears as she looks at him. His feet are still in the lake’s water. She doesn’t think he got out of them even once since his short battle with the snake-creatures.

“Are you coming or not?” she asks, voice light. She wants him to come, but she can’t make him. He’ll go in on his own will.

And he does. A very hesitant look on his face, he gets out of the water, foot by foot, and suddenly it’s like he is a different person.

His face fills with tiredness and anxiety. He looks like he’s about to lose consciousness every moment, clutching his injured leg above the bleeding part when minutes ago he wasn’t even aware of it. Fatigue is like a grey aura around him, following him wherever he goes.

He makes his way towards them, and with every step he takes the whispers are getting stronger, louder, demanding to be heard. The glass barrier between her and them feels stronger, but so are the whispers. Lydia clutches the door handle she’s holding to keep herself from clutching her head.

Percy stops right in front of the line of mountain ash, and she hopes to god he doesn’t notice it. He looks into the house, his face tinged with worry and exhaustion and - helplessness, she thinks he looks helpless, and there’s something screaming inside her, and her throat throbs with the need to  **scream** \- and her head - her head is probably about to  **explode** -

In the middle of the raging battle inside her, four whispers manage to escape.

The first is  _ Don’t go in _ .

The second is  _ Not safe _ .

The third is  _ Don’t belong here _ .

Then, the fourth is  **_Annabeth_ ** . 

Everything goes quiet again. Her head and throat calm back down in an instant. Percy steps in. The mountain ash stays unmoving, not caring about his presence, and she knows Percy hadn’t completely passed the test but it’s something. It’s something.

His eyes scan the living room and her and Stiles, the green in them calmer than she ever saw until now. She looks at his stance, at his face, and he looks ready to faint.

She turns to Stiles. “Can you bring me the aid kit? It’s in the kitchen,” she says softly.

Stiles is looking at Percy, his face tense. She knows he was unnaturally quiet because he doesn’t know what’s going on, but she does, so he let her take the reins. But it didn’t make him any more relaxed.

She slides her hand into his, squeezing reassuringly. He looks at her, honey-eyes as unreadable as ever. He sighs. His shoulders don’t relax in the slightest, but he manages to look at her with his usual restless energy, like it’s just a normal day in school.

“Sure,” he answers. “One aid kit on the way.”

She smiles. “Thanks, Stiles.” Then she turns back to Percy.

“There’s a bed upstairs,” she suggests. “You can rest there for how much you want.”

His eyes shine at her with something that looks close to gratitude, and she doesn’t want to, but she knows the next part is not something they can skip.

“I’ll show you the way… After we’ll talk.”


	3. Chapter 3

Percy looks like he’s about to black out any moment now, so Lydia tries to make it quick.

“So, where are you from?” she asks with what she hopes is a nice smile on her face.

He blinks a few times, his fingers drumming on the hard sofa he is sitting on, shifting every few moments like he can’t keep still, even though he looks like he is fighting to stay conscious. She finds herself fascinated by the obvious resemblance of Percy’s jerky-ness to Stiles’s usual manner.

They are in the living room. Percy is sitting stiffly on the leather sofa while she is bending forward on the white couch across from it, the shiny-surfaced coffee table between them. Everything is disturbingly steryl, like the rest of the unused lake-house, making the scene feel even more detached and emotionless. Percy squirms in his place again. He looks out of place on the spotless room, too filthy, his clothes bloodied and covered with dirt. She hears the whispers hiss from his restless form, stressed and tense just like him. He doesn’t trust her. He is not comfortable in this place, not when she asks him questions like that, and for some reason, she feels sad knowing it. 

His eyes fly from the door to her and back again, like a caged animal. He opens his mouth hesitantly. “I -”

Stiles bursts into the room, holding the white aid-kit up with a triumph expression. “Your grandma probably thought it was a good idea to hide it behind the mugs’ drawer. You have to look in there someday, looks like she put there some interesting stuff. I think I saw a clown-nose between the metal tokens.”

Lydia rolls her eyes and takes the kit from him. “Thanks, Stiles. I will. Sit, I was just asking Percy where does he live.”

Percy looks between them, sea-colored eyes flicking. “I - I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

“You  **can’t remember** ?” Stiles asks dubiously. “Like what - you just forgot the address suddenly?”

“No,” Percy answers. “Like I  **can’t remember** . I woke up about two months ago, with… no memory. At all.”

His voice is raspy, like he didn’t use it in a while. His right hand twitches over his injured-thigh again, shielding it from the lamp’s bright, white light. Lydia hurries to open the box in her hands.

“Not even the smallest thing? Not places? Not people?” she asks as she ruffles the bandages inside.

There is silence. She stops and looks up. Percy is looking at her with his piercing, green eyes, body frozen. He swallows. The whispers buzz. His hair is as wild as his eyes, and she can’t help but compare his posture to this of a rogue animal.

“Percy,” she says his name with weight to her voice, like a vow. “We are just trying to help. I swear you’re safe in here, we won’t try to hurt you. You are free to go, whenever you want.”

He doesn’t relax, not visibly, but he seems to take her words seriously enough to breathe deeply and blink at her like he tries to calm himself. His fingers stretch and loosen.

“I think I’m about sixteen, or maybe seventeen,” he says slowly, his eyes closing in concentration. “And I think I lived in… I lived in…”

His whispers get louder, sounding desperate, sounding urgent. But the steel-barrier stays strong, and they pound in her head helplessly, uselessly.

Percy opens his eyes at once, lifting his hand halfway to his head before clenching it and lowering it again. The whispers quiet down again, and Lydia almost exhales with relief.

“I can’t remember,” Percy says through gritted teeth, sounding frustrated, and pained, and Lydia resists the strange, instinctual urge to reach out to him.

“It’s okay,” she says and half smiles at him. “Let’s take it easy. One thing after another. How is your injury?”

He looks down at it, hand gently moving around the bloodied tear in his jeans. “It probably needs sewing.”

“Oh,” she answers, eyes meeting Stiles’ whiskey-colored ones, surprised and worried. Neither of them knows how to do that. “You can tell?”

He nods and peers up at them. “I’m ninety percents sure.” He looks at the open box on her knees. “Um, can I…?”

“Oh, sure,” she passes him the kit, unable to help the surprise from showing on her face. “You know how to sew a wound?”

He stops, his hands hanging mid-air with the aid kit between them. “I - yes. I think I do.” He looks at his thigh again, eyes squinting, then his mouth sets. “I do,” he says again, sounding determined.

“Okay then,” Lydia says. “There’s a shower upstairs, I can show you -”

“Yeah,” Stiles cuts in. “Very nice shower. You can sew yourself and get cleaned - not necessarily in this order. Lydia and I will stay here if you need anything, so feel free to come down and ask for whatever you want.”

“Um. Thanks.” Percy gets up from his sit and in two hurried seconds he is already climbing the stairs, rushing up, steps quiet yet eager. Lydia can’t be sure if it’s because of the pain or the questions.

“Okay,” Stiles whispers loudly. “I’ve waited until now, but I’m  **really** lacking some base information. What’s going on? Why are you so… helping, if we just met him fifteen minutes ago?”

She exhales slowly, quickly arranging the facts in the mess in her head. The fog clouding her thoughts clears with every step Percy takes, getting away from her, getting the whispers away from her.

“I’m not sure,” she says slowly.

Too slow for Stiles’s rushing brain - and mouth. “Not sure? You let some stranger in and you’re  **not sure** ?”

She looks at him, annoyed. “If you’ll let me explain you’ll find out, right?”

Stiles huffs, but stays quiet. She starts again.

“I’m not sure. I’m not sure about most of what was going on here until now. It’s instincts, banshee instincts. I’m just going along with it.”

“You trust them that much?” Something in his tone sounds high and surprised, like doubt.

“You are the one who told me to, remember?” she snaps without a pause, the need to defend herself making her snarky.

Stiles holds up his hands. “I’m not doubting you, of course not. I was just surprised. In a good way. I didn’t know you got so familiar with that side of you.” He smiles. “That’s a huge progress.”

“Oh.” Her cheeks are getting warmer, why are her cheeks getting warmer? “Well, yes. I trust myself. It’s okay to assist Percy, he needs our help.”

Stiles nods. “Okay. What about the beginning? What happened? I was in the car, and suddenly I woke up and you weren’t there.”

She looks at him pointedly. “Yeah, about you falling asleep on your turn to keep watch…” He blushes slightly. She smiles inwardly and goes on. “I woke up because of the whispers - I told you there was a strange silence before, and it worried me. Then they came back in a rush and woke me up. They were so loud, I thought I was about to scream. Then I heard Percy. The voices cleared and I could focus again, and I found myself in the water, two…  **Gorgons** surrounding me.”

“Gorgons?”

“A woman-like creature, with glowing eyes and snakes instead of hair. I probably wouldn’t have made it if Percy wasn’t there. He…” she stops suddenly.

“What?” Stiles prompts. “He what?”

She shakes her head, her eyes widening. “I can’t believe I forgot it. Stiles, he had a weapon - some sort of sword, maybe. That’s how he fought them.”

“He didn’t have it when I showed up,” Stiles says, his brow furrowing.

“Yeah, and the Gorgons were gone too. I don’t know what happened - one moment he was fighting them, and the next one he was standing there alone, no creatures or swords.” She thinks about the darkness outside, about the close-to-panicked state she was in. “He only said they were gone. He wouldn’t tell me what happened.”

Stiles sighs. “Great, so he probably carries a secret weapon with him and there might be two dangerous snake-women things after you. Just great,” he groans.

She doesn’t answer, instead she focuses on the scene again and again - trying to find the exact moment where the sword disappeared, where the Gorgons were gone. But she can’t remember it, no matter how hard she tries.

“It’s weird,” she says finally. “It’s like my mind was too fuzzy to focus on anything, at that moment.” Maybe it was because of her still-messy head, after the rush of the whispers. But it doesn’t seem to fit. Something else might have happened, but what?...

“We could ask him later,” Stiles says, waking her from her thoughts gently. “Now let's finish getting over this. What happened next?”

“Next… there was this thing with his whispers.” She looks up at Stiles’ encouraging eyes. “His whispers - they were so loud, like they… wanted me to hear them, so - so badly. Like the last words of a tortured man,” the expression  slips  from her tongue. She shuts her eyes at the memory of their pain, at her helplessness. “But I couldn’t.”

“You couldn’t?”

“No. They were loud, and desperate, but… blocked.” She opens her eyes again, looking at him intently, like her stare can make him understand. “Something was preventing me from hearing it. Still is. It’s like hearing someone screaming at you, but your head is under water, so you can hear perfectly the volume of the words - but everything is a bungled mess. I think it’s the same thing as his memory - the whispers are blocked from me like his memories are blocked from him.”

Stiles hums in response. “Good point there.”

She nods, making herself loosen her tense posture, trying to relax. “Anyway. There were only a few words that managed to escape.”

Stiles takes her hand in his. “Tell me.”

She remembers it all, as clear as a sunny day, but she still breathes slowly in an attempt to concentrate. “The first whisper was about his memory - I asked him who is he. He said his name, but I heard,  _ I don’t know _ . And it’s true, he apparently doesn’t know anything about his himself but his name.” 

Stiles nods. “Yeah, sounds acceptable. What else?”

“The four others came together, when he came inside the lake house.”

“The Mountain Ash.”

She looks at him and can’t control a smile from appearing on her face, because sometimes it’s like he’s reading her mind. “Yeah. He isn’t a normal human, Stiles - he almost didn’t pass it. Three of these whispers were screaming at him to  _ go back _ , that  _ it’s not safe _ , that he  _ doesn’t belong here _ . I think he would have left at that same moment if the fourth whisper hasn’t come up next. But it’s strange. I don’t know why it made him stay.”

Stiles is very still, unlike himself. “What was it?”

“One word.” Lydia thinks at the fiercest whisper she has heard from Percy, at the amount of power and determination and hope in that single name. “It said,  _ Annabeth _ .”

They’re quiet for a moment. She can see Stiles’s eyes get that faraway stare, that means he isn’t really here right now - he is in his own mind, processing, thinking.

She touches his hand gently. “It sounded very private. Very powerful, very important, very  **his** . We can’t bring that up with him.”

Stiles nods, but she knows he’s suspicious now anyway. Annabeth is probably someone Percy knew - knows? - while he said he can’t remember anything and anyone. At all. It probably means he lied. Or there’s a really weird and unusual explanation, or he lied.

She can’t bring herself to feel surprised, or mad, or even wary. It’s so expected. He doesn’t trust them, not yet. He wouldn’t tell them something that important without feeling completely comfortable with them first.

“There’s something I don’t get though,” Stiles says softly, extremely quiet. “You said you wanted to help him, right? Then why didn’t you tell him anything about your cousin? Rachel obviously can take him home.”

Lydia feels that cold sensation in the pit of her stomach. She doesn’t want to answer this question. Thinking about it makes her understand how cruel her powers can be, to make her decide to keep to herself the information Percy’s so lost without.

“We can’t. We mustn’t.” She says the words in a detached way, trying not to hear coldness in them. Trying not to shiver. “His memories - they were taken from him. I know it.” She breathes deeply. “And they weren’t taken for no reason. Something about it is important - he has to stay without his memory for now. Or all of it - his pain, everything - would go to waste. We can’t interfere.”

Stiles’s eyes are running on her tense form, from head to toe and back again, scrutinizing her in a way that makes her want to hold up her shields and pretend she’s perfectly okay, and at the same time, to break down entirely. She lets out a shuddering breath and hopes her face isn’t crumbling under his caring gaze. She can’t fall, not now. Not until it’s over.

“Okay,” Stiles says softly, hand clutching hers, eyes still focused on her emerald ones. “Okay. We won’t do it - we won’t do anything you’re not perfectly okay with.” He breathes slowly, and she breathes with him. Stiles is sometimes a  balm of reassurance like that.

“Then what can we do?” he asks a few moments later, when she’s finally numb and relaxed. “You’re the boss now. You said we need to help him, so what do you wanna do?”

Lydia smiles, content. “Now, we make sure he’s okay. We give him a bed for the night, and dinner, and maybe by the end he’ll even trust us enough to tell us about this Annabeth.”   
  



	4. Chapter 4

Finding Percy crouched on the window-ledge gives her an honest-to-god mini heart attack.

A muffled “Don’t!” is the only thing she manages to choke out, panic filling her from head to toe. His eyes shot up, looking surprised.

“What the hell? Dude, wait!” Stiles calls, expressing her thoughts in a coherent way. Percy looks out the window again.

“Look, I’m sorry,” he says without looking up. “I appreciate your help, really, but I can’t stay. I have to go.”

“Through the  **window** ?” Lydia asks, still panicked. “It’s at least nine feet from the ground!”

He looks at her blankly. “I’ve survived worse than that before.”

Stiles squints at him unbelievably. “There’s a perfectly working door downstairs, man. You don’t have to  **survive** it, you can just walk out like a normal person.”

Percy looks down through the window again, hands twitching restlessly. “Yeah, but it’s darker here than in the entrance. They won’t see me.”

Lydia’s head is pounding again. The whispers are a persistent hiss in the back of her head, and they make it hard for her to concentrate. She leans against the cream-colored door frame tiredly, resisting the urge to rub her face and sigh. “They? Is someone watching over the house?”

They’re in the dust-filled guest room upstairs, the room she gave Percy for now. He’s showered and sutured himself, but he’s still wearing the same ruined clothes, so he’s not completely clean and fresh. He still looks ready to faint, the dark under his eyes more visible now that his face is clean. 

They just came to check up on him and let him know there’s food in the fridge if he’s interested (she knows he is, but it’s better not to freak him out with her supernatural senses now). They didn’t expect to find him examining the window, looking ready to jump out from the  **second floor** . 

Percy sighs tiredly and retreats from the window ledge, accepting that he won’t be out of here without their consent. “The gorgons. Those snake-women?”

Lydia can’t help but flinch slightly at their mention. “But - I thought you… killed them,” she says, her brow creasing gently in confusion.

Percy shakes his head, nearly collapsing to the bed when he sits down on it. “Doesn’t matter - they always come back. I killed them at least four times by now. They’re still chasing me.”

“Oh, that’s so freaking fantastic,” Stiles groans, and Lydia exchanges a pained look with him, because why can’t they ever be just left alone? They just had to deal with the Dread Doctors and the Beast of  Gévaudan, can’t they at least have a damn  **break** ?

She sighs and gives in to her urges, rubbing her face like a master. “We have to call Scott.”

It’s obvious Percy is barely keeping his eyes open. “Who’s Scott?” he asks hoarsely.

“A friend of ours,” Stiles answers, a hand on the back of his neck. “He’s more, uh… equipped, to dealing with this kind of… creatures.”

Percy opens his eyes again at the words. “No, you don’t have to. They’re after me. They’ll leave you alone once I’m gone.” He stands up and starts moving back to the window with stumbling steps.

“Wait, Percy,” she says, taking a step forward without thinking. He stops, hands on the window frame, but doesn't turn to look at her. “Wait. You’re in no condition to walk out like this, at least have some sleep before you go.”

He turns around, fists clenching over the wooden frame as he stares intently at them. “You don’t understand. They’re probably fully back right now, which means it won’t take long until they’ll attack. Believe me, I’ve had to deal with them for the last week while I was running, I know what they do. They don’t care about mortals, you’ll be dead if you stand in their way. Whatever your friend is going to do, normal guns or daggers won’t work, and even if they did - they’ll just come back two hours later, tops.”

“Mortals?” Stiles asks, eyebrows climbing up.

“Normal people,” Percy says offhandedly, and Lydia clenches her teeth together, because she knew, she just knew he isn’t normal. Not entirely, at least.

She steps forward to catch his attention. “Percy. It’s okay. They won’t be able to get in here, this is a safe place.” She sends a quick look at Stiles, debating with herself at how exactly to phrase her words. “We have protection. Around the house.” 

Percy looks at her, and she thinks he’s doubtful, so she adds, “no monster can get in here, not unless we let it. And we won’t,” she clarifies hurriedly.

Percy looks at her, then at Stiles, then at her again. He looks tired.

“Are you sure?” he asks simply.

She nods, and he nods too and goes back to the bed. “I hope you’re right,” he says, falling unceremoniously on it. “In case you’re not… just scream or something; it’ll probably be enough to wake me up.”

You have no idea, she thinks sarcastically. Stiles looks at her with a glint in his eyes and a small quirk of his lips upward. She smiles at their private joke.

“So what’s up?” Percy asks, already sounding sleepy. “Why d’you come up here? Not like you can’t, it’s your place and everything. Just wonderin’.”

Lydia can’t help another small smile. “We wanted you to know there’s food downstairs, if you’re interested,” she suggests, smirking slightly at the rumbling sound of appreciation he makes at her offer. “And… that you can stay here. This place is mostly empty anyway, don’t feel like you’re being a burden.”

“Thanks,” he mumbles, sea-green staring at her through half-lidded eyes. “Really, I appreciate it. Thanks, both of you.”

Stiles snorts. “Yeah, no problem. Sweet dreams, man.”

He gets out. Lydia stays inside, looking at Percy as his eyelids slip close and his breathing evens. His face relaxes entirely, and she feels this quiet hiss in her head, as the whispers settle into something more rested, less stressing. 

“It’s kinda creepy when you’re staring like that,” he mumbles sleepily. She chuckles.

“Just curious,” she says softly, and he hums but doesn’t open his eyes, doesn’t look bothered by her at all. His face is the most open and peaceful she’s seen this far, looking young suddenly, like he said he is. Probably a year younger than her.

Maybe he’s trusting her now, she muses.

“Hey,” she says, walking over to the bed. “Can you tell me something? I have a question.”

One green eye opens to look at her, inspecting her as she crouches in front of his face.

“Yeah,” he says a moment later, eye fluttering close again. “What is it?”

“I was wondering,” she starts, speaking slowly and cautiously. “You said earlier you were traveling for a week, right?” He nods and she goes on. “Well, downstairs you said you were awake for about two months…” Percy tenses, and she tenses too in response but makes herself finish the question anyway. “Where have you been before you started moving, Percy?”

Both eyes snap open. They stare at each other for a moment, and she fights the urge to swallow, to back away from him. He doesn’t look angry, or threatening, but the feral look in his eyes makes her skin crawl and her breath stop. Again, like he did downstairs, he looks more animal and less human.

She makes herself stay completely still under his gaze.

Eventually he sighs and closes his eyes, turning his face to the ceiling exhaustedly.

“She was there when I woke up. She didn’t tell me anything, but she helped me. I trust her and her wolves.”

Lydia’s eyes widen. Alarms go off in her head. 

“She?” she asks cautiously. 

Percy exhales, looking half asleep. “Lupa,” he murmurs. “Lupa and her pack.”

Lydia stands up, staring at him and swallowing. Her heart pounds in her chest, and the whispers hiss again, almost there but always out of her reach. She lets out air shakily. 

Wolves.  **Lupa** . It has to be werewolves. It’s not a coincidence, right? He  **knows** . He has to know.

Percy doesn’t open his eyes. With the steady rise and fall of his chest, she thinks it’s safe to assume he’s finally asleep.

She turns around without another word and hurries out of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short, I know. Sorry :\  
> Wanted you to know the next chapters will be up on a much much slower pace. Sorry about that too!


	5. Chapter 5

She’s on her way to the kitchen when it happens.

She stops in her tracks, blood draining from her face. Her hands clutch the stairs’ railing like a lifeline so she won’t claw her head off instead. It’s like an orchestra of drilling machines pounding inside her, getting stronger and stronger by the second, screaming, whispering, swallowing her. She sways on her feet unsteadily as her vision turns bright and white and too much for her to stand, like the war raging in her mind.

It’s a bloodbath. 

She hears screams and metal clinging and cries and fire and smoke and water, so much water, swarming and flooding every available corner of everything, and her mind is going to short-circuit, and she just - she can’t -  _ breathe _ -

It all goes too strong, blending together to one, unending, undefeatable scream, going higher and higher and full of stories but empty at the same time, so empty, it’s just, it’s -

Void. 

Stiles’s eyes look darker in this light, full of concern.

Her vision cleans. Her heart is running in her chest like a frightened rabbit, and her head hurts, and she’s somehow on the floor, but it’s almost okay now. She can still hear the noises, the whispers, so full of agony, but she can do this now. She made it through the worst.

She squints and starts to sit up, still somewhat shaky. Stiles, crouched beside her, hurries to give her a hand.

“Are you okay?” he asks worriedly.

She nods, frowning. “Yeah, I’m… fine, pretty much.”

He doesn’t look calmer in the slightest. “What the hell was that?”

“I - I’m not sure,” she answers hesitantly. “I just… exploded there, for a second. So many sounds, and they got really loud, really fast… For how long was I out?”

“A couple of minutes. I was starting to think about calling an ambulance. You scared the hell out of me, Lydia. Don’t do that again.”

She squints at him again. The whispers rise slightly in her mind. “Did I - was I screaming?” She doesn’t feel like she screamed. She feels as cramped up with the noises as she usually is. Well, maybe more than usually.

He shakes his head. “No, I just heard you gasping and you didn’t answer when I called your name. I realized something’s wrong but you were already collapsed by then.”

She rubs her forehead. “It’s - it was Percy. I think something’s wrong with him.”

“Wrong like amnestic? Or wrong like dead? Because if it’s the first one we already know that.”

Lydia closes her eyes for a second, breathing in deeply. “And if it’s the second?”

Stiles’s eyebrow rises. “Uh, then we should probably get rid of the body… Why are you asking? Is he dead?”

She smiles faintly, humorlessly. “Let’s find out.”

* * *

 

Percy isn’t dead. 

It’s pretty scary for one moment, because he’s lying down and not moving, but they quickly notice he’s breathing evenly, deep in his sleep. 

He looks open and innocent when he’s unconscious. She almost can’t believe how ordinary this thought sounds. They’re so old in this business. 

“Well?” Stiles asks. She shushes him, eyes trained on the sleeping boy in the other side of the guest room.

She feels it in her bones now, too. The pounding. Whispers begging to be set free. Crying, aching. It’s agony.

It’s like an itching scratch she can’t reach no matter what. A burning scratch.

Percy sleeps like the dead. She has no doubt his sleep is black and dreamless. It’s all trapped in her head. He is the source of it, yet he has no access to the scratch either.

“He’s asleep,” she murmurs quietly. “His memories are supposed to reveal themselves to him now, but they’re blocked. It just made it all… louder.”

“Enough to make you black out.”

She nods. Percy’s mouth is slightly open and he snores very softly, in this adorable way kids often do. His whispers are waves of rising and descending tide in her ears, always shifting. 

“It… It’s  - it’s about to get worse,” she echoes. She realizes Stiles is talking right when he finishes his question and frowns, shaking her head a little. “Sorry, what?”

He looks as stressed and tired as she feels. “What are we gonna do?”

She feels bad, just a little bit guilty. She’s pretty sure he still has panic attacks from time to time. It’s not going well so far. Time to stop translating ominous and mostly useless whispers.

“Let’s call Scott,” she suggests softly. “Maybe he’ll do his thing with the claws on Percy? Bring him back his memories?”

Stiles’s face brightens, just a little, at Scott’s name. “Yeah, that could work. It’s two in the morning, but I think he’d want us to call him, so whatever. Let’s do it.”

He keeps talking, but suddenly Lydia can’t hear him anymore. She forgets he even said something. 

There is only one sound in her mind, a chorus of thousands of pained whispers. 

They swarm her from the inside and out and she can’t think of anything other than them, other than that  _ sound _ .

She shudders. They shake and jerk with her, beams of light meeting the mirror’s surface and shuttering, recoloring the world, changing everything. She inhales the colors like oxygen. It’s dizzying, attracting, almost addicting, but - not.

The world melts around her. Only one tie to reality remains.

She looks down at Percy, suddenly right next to him, and all she can see is the rope. Red and bold and trembling slightly in the air.

It’s calling her. It wants her to hold it and jump in and never come back.

Her finger hovers over it. It’s warm, brimming with life and need and yearning. 

If she touches it, it will have what it wants. She will have nothing but it’s pleasure. She wants it too.

But not enough to give up, something deep and almost too quiet inside her says. Not yet.

She draws back. Slowly, hesitantly. But she does.

Percy is the same beneath her gaze, unmoved by their shared experience of the supernatural. He is too deep in his sleep to be affected by his unspoken dreams and their lure to her.

She sighs and turns around. Stiles’s worried honey-eyes meet hers and he sighs too, but he is more relieved than nostalgic. 

“Are you okay? You were in some kind of a trance. I wasn’t sure what to do.”

She can’t find her voice for a moment. “Yes, I’m alright. It was him again. I… I could unlock his memories. I saw the opening.” The red rope is a flickering vision in her mind. She could still taste the colors on her tongue.

“But you didn’t?”

She casts a look at Percy’s still form. He sniffs in his sleep. “I could, but…”

And suddenly, in a hundred and eighty degrees turn, all she wants is to break down, right here on the floor, and cry her heart out. 

Percy sniffs again. She lets her hair fall around her face like a veil and swallows thickly. Her voice comes out to rough to be casual.

“It - I could have let it use me as a gate, and let it all out, but to do that I’ll need to sink in instead of it, and… I’m… I probably wouldn’t be able to get out, I don’t think I would.”

Her voice starts to waver in the end, and her hands tremble, and then Stiles has his hands around her and he leads her out before she wouldn’t be able to hold back a sob that will wake Percy up anymore.

He takes her into another room, she doesn’t even look up to see which one, and before she can try to wriggle herself out of his arms he holds her close until she’s completely engulfed.

“You remember I told you once you’re beautiful when you cry? I still mean that,” he murmurs.

The colors - those beautiful, glorious, _ heavenly colors _ \- leave her until the last prickle of them is gone. Her mind is clean. All she can smell is Stiles.

She cries.

Stiles only lets her go when the final sob dies down, then looks at her with his intense eyes, and she doesn’t shy away. She doesn’t allow herself to doubt.

He wipes her tears with a gentle hand and she can’t stop talking.

“It was so beautiful, Stiles, it was - I’ve never in my life seen anything like it. And I  _ wanted to _ \- god, I wanted to  _ jump _ , I wanted to just let it out and replace it, and that rope was red and unsolved and it had gravity like a black hole. I’m just - I’m a banshee, I - I  _ needed _ to do that. I know I shouldn't, but I  _ wanted _ to do it so bad.”

It’s probably  jibberish for him, but he doesn’t say anything, just holds until she’s let it all out and she can breathe properly again. And then it’s quiet.

She lets the silence comfort her. Stiles’s hand is big and it fits hers like a glove.

“It’s okay,” he says eventually. “It’s okay for you to feel all these things, Lydia. You are the banshee. There is no one, no matter what anybody says, that knows better than you about your banshee-abilities. So if it’s hard, it’s okay. You’re tougher than a lot of people I know. If whatever happened makes you cry, than you should never be ashamed of it.”

She holds his hand tighter and ignores the warmth in her chest as best as she can. For the first in the last few hours, her mind is clean and quiet.

She thinks what she feels is gratitude, or contentment. She never felt this way about anyone before.

It makes the world settle around her. Just for a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reviews are always appreciated.


End file.
